RIP Ralph McInerny

Professor Ralph McInerny died peacefully on Friday.  Reports from Zenit and First Things and more First Things. And Sally has comments here.  I couldn't find anything on the ND web page about his death, but I did come across some words that Dr. McInerny said at the death of Otto Bird, who founded the Program of Liberal Studies, my major:

In his autobiography, “Seeking a Center: My Life as a ‘Great Bookie,’” Bird described his personal search for truth, and how he made use of methods learned from Gilson and Adler to rediscover the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, which eventually led him to the Catholic Church. That search was, in the words of his Notre Dame colleague, Ralph McInerny, “the journey of an intellect, of a soul, that puts before the reader a vision of the intellectual life one wishes were more palpably present in Catholic colleges and universities than it is nowadays.”

from http://pls.nd.edu/about/news/


The same could be said of Dr. McInerny.

My own personal memories of Dr. McInerny at Notre Dame are all positive. I first was introduced to him at a conference when I was in high school that my grandfather, also named Ralph, took me to.  They both greeted each other with a hearty handshake, and "Hello, Ralph!" "Hello, Ralph!" I suppose if your name is Ralph you have a sense of connection to other Ralphs.  I was touched and a little surprised when Dr. McInerny recognized me on campus several seasons later and asked after Grandpa Ralph. 

My husband was a student in one of his undergraduate Aquinas classes and still refers to something he learned in that class almost every month.  He knew he was in the presence of a genius because Dr. McInerny made something so difficult so accessible. And it was Dr. McInerny who taught my husband that meeting his future wife was providential. While Dr. McInerny was describing the difference between accidental and intentional causes, he used the example of how when you go to the dining hall, you intend to eat a hamburger, but then accidentally meet your wife, the accidental cause is God. And so it was!

His autobiography, I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You, is not only entertaining but enlightening, like all of his essays and books and poetry.  Our deacon gave a homily today about preaching the truth with charity, which is what Dr. McInerny always did.  A true man of letters who will be missed.

Poetry for Friday

Taking a break for the weekend. Husband deploys on Monday for 7 months.  I don't think he'll phrase his farewell quite this way, but here's one valedictory:

To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars

       by Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honor more.

We'll also celebrate my second grader's first sacrament of reconciliation Saturday.

Thought Provoking

An interesting article in the New Yorker on depictions of discipline, or lack thereof, in picture books. From a link from MacBeth's Opinion via a link from Castle in the Sea.

I am not an effective disciplinarian - rather like one of those wheedling, idle-threat parents described - which is why we'll miss my husband when he leaves.  He speaks, they listen.

RIP J. D. Salinger

I just heard on the radio today that J. D. Salinger, exacerbator of teenage angst, has died at age 91. Apparently he was following a diet to live until 120.  When as a teenager, I discovered Salinger, I devoured all his stories I could get my hands on.  Will I encourage my almost 13 year old to read him? Definitely not. Will I prevent him if some day he picks up Catcher in the Rye to read? Probably not.  It's a part of cultural history.  Was Salinger a genius? Probably. Has he lowered the standards of what is taught in high school English class so that teachers look for empathetic characters instead of good literature? I think you could argue that. I should probably reread something by him before saying any more, but Holden Caulfield and all his imitations irritate me as a parent. I guess I'm one of those phonies now. 

Feast Day of St. Thomas Aquinas

Almost missed to opportunity to post one of my favorite prayers.

St. Thomas Aquinas' prayer before study:

Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being,
graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding.

Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born,
an obscurity of sin and ignorance.

Give me a keen understanding,
a retentive memory,
and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations
and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning,
direct the progress,
and help in the completion.

I ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

This version is used in the Notre Dame student prayer book, Day by Day.

Wish I knew how to make oxtail soup...
Through St. Thomas's intercession, prayers are offered for a favorite professor, Dr. Ralph McInerny, who has been ill.

Post in which I learn about southern culture.

I learned a new word yesterday: a friend was telling me how she catechized a Protestant friend by saying that “The Catholic Church is the Christian Church with a little lagniappe” – a little something extra.

Keeping with the theme of integrating into the south, I made my first pot of gumbo yesterday. I know it’s not authentic because I started with roux from a jar and put the rice in the pot, not on the side. I did this because I don’t like to wash extra dishes and because the Cajun sausage I used was so darn hot I needed to down a beer to douse the flames and the rice to soak up the heat. Maybe I should have tasted the soup before I added some Slap Your Mama and hot sauce. Tiana never would have done that. But my husband loved it even if none of the kids did!

At the movies

For $13 we can take our entire family of 8 and Grandma to the movies on the base. This weekend’s fare was The Princess and the Frog, and since we had infected our grandpa with a stomach bug, we gave him some peace and quiet by going to the show.

I’m not a real connoisseur of animation, but I appreciated that this was not the 3-D computer animation that has become de rigueur over the past few years. On the other hand, it was pretty standard Disney fare of “wish hard enough and your dreams will come true.” Initially, the main character, Tiana, sings about the idea that hard work was the route to making her dream of owning a restaurant come true, but she still needed to wish on a star for a lucky break and a prince to make her restaurant a reality.

And maybe in a sense, that’s the way things are: you really do need a lucky break, or a friend in the know, to achieve the fantastic. I don’t mean this in a cynical way – that lucky break is really providence at work. And I really don’t expect Disney to make a movie about the mystery of God’s hand in our lives. But it means that I have to give my daughter, who said something about wishing hard enough on Sunday, a spiel about how we should pray instead of wish for the things we want, and not to expect to marry princes, even though I did.


I think I enjoyed the movie a little more after our visit to New Orleans, although the movie stereotypes the bayou folk and glorifies the city. And the villain thoroughly frightened my kids away from voodoo fortune tellers, even ones like the potbellied guy in a t-shirt and jeans who had set up his card table in front of St. Louis with the other gauze and velvet draped fortune tellers. They had preprinted signs advertising tarot and palm readings; he had torn cardboard on which was written with sharpie marker: “Fortunes. Professional. All true.”